ATP - Victor Hanescu v Ivan Ljubicic

Small notice: This is a match between Viktor Troicki and Ivan Ljubičić.

This is the pick that I had my eyes on for couple of days now. Even though he didn't have that much experience in the matches on grass, or more precisely he played only three matches on that surface in his career so far, I believe there's a huge value that lies on Viktor Troicki here. Well, he had a good start on grass beating Dudi Sela in straight sets last week in Queens. In the next round, it seemed like he had way too much respect for shaky Nalbandian and he dropped that match after a pretty good battle and many BPs he wasted in both sets, to lose in a TB at the end. I think he's learned a lesson from that match - to start believing in himself much more. Realistically, he possesses a very solid quality and deserves a much better ATP ranking which should definitely be more noticeable in the near future. For about couple of weeks now, he's been having a new sponsor which is definitely great news considering how tough it is to find a good and trustworthy sponsor in his country. That should now allow him to focus completely on tennis, and not on finances at all which is very important at this stage of his career. His focus has been good already, he had an easy match in the first round here at Hertogenbosch beating the German Gremelmayr, who we all probably remember as a very tough first-round opponent of Novak Djokovic at this year's Roland Garros. Troicki, however, beat the German quite comfortably, not allowing him a single BP opportunity and not converting 10 BPs himself. In that match he won a huge percentage of first serve points (89%!) which definitely tells us that kick-serve he possesses is one of his strongest weapons on fast surfaces, and that his opponent today won't be the only great server out there on the court.

And his opponent will be 29-yr old Ivan Ljubičić, currently one tennis player that the Croatian public (and his colleague players) have the most respect for. Ljubičić used to be a great doubles player, he even won the Bronze medal at the 2004 summer Olympics playing in pair with Mario Ančić and the years of 2005. and '06 were the time when Ivan achieved the best results of his career. In that time period he won 5 out of his 8 ATP titles in single and participated in 8 finals as well. Also, in 2006. he managed to record his two by far the best results at Grand Slams - QF at Australian Open, and SF at Roland Garros, and also a couple of similar results at Masters. That's also when he reached his highest rankings - he was the third player in the world. But, since then it seemed like the things kind started going downhills for Ivan. He's had a couple more solid results including the title at the tournament he's playing now (Hertogenbosch) but that tournament was much weaker last year (for example, he beat lowly-ranked Peter Wessels in the finals). His form slowly started dropping along with his ATP rankings. It is obvious the age has knocked at the door for him and it could be said that, if we don't count in some occasional sparks of old form, he became an average tennis player who lost plenty of motion and is mostly depending on the serve and opponent's errors.

So, a clash of youth versus the experience where I'm definitely picking the youth as I believe Viktor is very capable of getting a win in this matchup at the moment. Ljubičić doesn't currently seem like too big of a threat and his decent run at RG I wouldn't take too seriously. It's true he played an incredibly good match against Davydenko, but it's been a while since I took one of the Russian's matches seriously, no matter how they looked or how long they lasted. Here in Holland he defeated the home player Haase in two sets, but it should be mentioned that he was about to lose the second set Tie-Breaker when he managed to save several set points, which was mostly due to his opponent's inexperience in key situations. I still have to say that I don't see such a big desire for a win in Ivan, whereas with Troicki that's more than obvious. These two have met once so far, it was in China last year on hard and Ljubičić won that match easily. Today, believe it or not, I reckon Troicki will be an easy winner. Ivan will probably defend for the most of the time and try to use his experience to force Troicki's errors, but... If Viktor prepares good tactics and plays the match smart, considering this match is played on a very fast surface, it will be enough for me to think of him as a pretty sure winner.

Best of luck to all of you that will have enough courage to listen to my advice and take this bet. The odds are, to say the least, very wickedly set (they were even higher) and I would feel guilty if I haven't taken the risk. Now I'll just let it happen...

Pick : Viktor Troicki
Odds : 4.37
Stake : 8 / 10
Bookmaker : Pinnacle
Match Result : 1-2
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